Anyone have tips on planning a budget Ireland trip?

[auger]

We will be making a trip to Ireland to visit our daughter at school. unfortunately, the trip will be made much earlier than we originally expected.
We are desperately looking for deals and discounts to help save as much as we can, since we don't have as much time to set money aside.
Our trip will be mid to late September.
We are looking on sites like VRBO for a rental property, so that we can make meals and have more comfortable accomodations.
Flights right now seem pretty high, so I am hoping they will come down a little.
We also plan to rent a car, rather than trying to rely on public transportation the entire time.
We don't want to do a tour trip, because we want to see what WE want to see, not what a tour guide is deciding to show us. We prefer the not-so-beaten path!
Oh, and we are traveling with another couple.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

https://www.gate1travel.com/europe/ireland-travel#IE-2016-IND

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We honeymooned in Ireland though it's been 20 years so I don't know how much help this will be or if it's still relevant. We also didn't want to be part of a tour so we booked a B&B package through Brendan Tours. They gave us a booklet of 12 vouchers (for a 12 nt stay). Any B&B that displayed the Irish Tourist Board's logo (green shamrock) would accept a voucher for 1 night's stay and breakfast in the am. Our package included a rental car too which despite our upgrade, was extremely tiny by US standards. Since we arrived in Ireland on Oct. 10, very off season, we didn't need reservations anywhere but we were told in summer it's necessary or you could get stuck. We wandered like gypsies all over the country, stopping at a B&B when the sun started to go down. We managed to get lucky in that we were always able to find a place that we'd have our own bathroom. Many have a shared bathroom. No thanks.

We did reserve Dromoland Castle for our last night. Also once I stood before Ashford Castle, I knew I had to spend a night there. When they heard it was our honeymoon, they upgraded us to an incredible 2 level suite with a full wall fireplace, 12 ft ceilings with probably 9 ft windows, huge canopy bed,
heated towel bars, real Waterford drinking glasses,you name it. We sacrificed a voucher and paid out of pocket for that and to this day don't regret a minute of it. It's a 5* hotel and a jacket is required in their dining room which we were not prepared for so we went out to eat.

I do recall that even in mid 90's prices it was a $300+ upgrade so the car could have an automatic transmission. I have driven a stick before but didn't want the hassle/worry of having to be on the other side of the road and everything feeling opposite what we're used to. So one must shift left-handed and I wanted to make it as simple for us to transition as possible. Driving there was an adventure to say the least.

I've heard they no longer offer tours of the Waterford factory. We were able to watch the whole process and it was really amazing. They offered free engraving so we bought a seahorse (their logo) and had the bottom engraved with our dates. Still holds a special place in our hearts.

We booked our flights separately through Aer Lingus and it was only $550 pp RT. We had to connect at JFK to get there, arriving in Shannon. Then return to the US through Boston, go through customs always in the first US city you land in, then connect to Philly.
There was no internet in those days so it was hard to compare but that was the best price I could get for our dates.

Dh wants to return and bring our kids but I can only get 1 week off in summer and when I look back over our itinerary that we took, I don't know what I could cut out because we loved it all.

Have a great time!!

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

We will be making a trip to Ireland to visit our daughter at school. unfortunately, the trip will be made much earlier than we originally expected.
We are desperately looking for deals and discounts to help save as much as we can, since we don't have as much time to set money aside.
Our trip will be mid to late September.
We are looking on sites like VRBO for a rental property, so that we can make meals and have more comfortable accomodations.
Flights right now seem pretty high, so I am hoping they will come down a little.
We also plan to rent a car, rather than trying to rely on public transportation the entire time.
We don't want to do a tour trip, because we want to see what WE want to see, not what a tour guide is deciding to show us. We prefer the not-so-beaten path!
Oh, and we are traveling with another couple.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated!

If you don't already have one, go apply for a passport NOW. Not a passport card, those are for land border crossings.
If you procrastinate you will end up paying an extra $60 pp for it to be expedited.

 

[NinaBella]

Go to the Adventures By Disney forum and read the Ireland post there. Lots of people gave me great info, including a couple locals.

 

[stout]

We are headed to Ireland in 20 days (but nobody is counting, right?). I watched airfare like a hawk and stalked every possible route! If you PM me you desired departure city and arrival city, I might be able to help. We actually found a great deal into Cork and out of Shannon. We are traveling for two weeks, staying at 7 different places, some are a really good bargain, some are not so much... The rental car, however, is more than airfare...and there wasn't much we could do about that. Overall, I think we have planned the most economical for our needs/wants. We are a family of 4--two kids, two adults. Seriously, PM me if you want to bounce ideas off me and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

 

[kawc1945]

Sign up for airfarewatchdog alerts for your itinerary. They'll email you when the price drops. Check their site, follow on twitter.

 

[LAS2AMS]

AIR
- Consider traveling from Canada. Fares from Canada are generally more competitive than those from the USA, and with the CAD in the toilet, this can generate some huge savings. How huge? For travel from mid- to late- September, a ticket from YYZ (Toronto) to DUB (Dublin) prices out at $485 on British Airways via London (LHR).
- Alternatively, you may travel via a competitive US gateway. While it's usually priced higher than going via Canada, it's pretty competitive in this situation. Travel to DUB from from Boston is $500, NYC $530, Washington $620 and Chicago $660.
- If you don't live near any of these gateways, consider purchasing a ticket to one. For example, the lowest fare from my home airport is $1200. A RT ticket to BOS is $147, and a BOS-DUB ticket is $500, yielding a total cost of $647. Now, the routing will be ugly, but I will have saved nearly 50%. Just make sure to give yourself ample time to make the connections.
- If this doesn't work or you're too stubborn to do so, set alerts on kayak or skyscanner.
- If Delta has a large presence at your local airport, consider buying an air+car package through Delta Vacations. The lowest price from my local airport is $2400 for two tickets, but for $1800, Delta Vacations will sell me the same flights + a car -- I'll have to pay a few bucks in rental car taxes, but I'll still save $600. Note that Delta Vacations is the only in-house vacation arm, so it's the only one that discounts air tickets.

HOTEL
- If you don't have a specific hotel in mind, Priceline will deliver some huge savings, and more often than not, you can predict the oblique hotel offered via its Express product. For example, we're going to Anaheim next week and got the 3* Holiday Inn Anaheim Resort for less than $500 (including taxes & fees) for 8 nights. I knew it was going to be that property, researched it and determined it was acceptable (recently renovated). We took a very expensive trip in the early spring, so the budget was tight for this one, but given it's the peak vacation week of the year, we got a steal.

CAR
- Playing with corporate discount codes + coupons can yield big savings (look for them at Flyertalk, etc.) but it's also time consuming and takes some practice. When we go to Anaheim next week, we're renting a Hertz car for ~$120 (including tax!) for right days -- a huge steal from any vendor at LAX, let alone Hertz (although National is my preference). The price on their website was $330, but entering the AAA code + coupon saved me $200, and easily beat the incumbent reservation (~$300) we had already made. Of course, I was at a boring conference and had time to kill... this may not always be the case.

 

[shamrock30]

We just returned from a 2 1/2 week trip. We found that renting a car from Dan Dooley at Shannon was a bit cheaper than other options. (We had to take a shuttle to the rental location, but it was fine.) More credit cards cover CDW in Ireland than was the case just a couple of years ago. We used a Visa that offered primary insurance, which meant we had to bring a letter proving coverage with us.

If we'd wanted or needed to chose a rental that included the insurance, easytourireland.com was supposedly a good place to rent from.

On our previous two trips, we stayed in B&Bs. This trip, we stayed in hotels, plus an apartment for a few nights. Most of the hotels covered breakfast in our rate. The ones that didn't offered it for a fair rate, around 10E per person. Breakfasts were substantial, so we just ate some yogurt or something like that for lunch.

The current Lonely Planet Guide for Ireland, and Rick Steve's guide both listed reasonable restaurant and pub options for dinner.

You can a buy a Heritage card that will cover many of the tourist sites. We didn't buy it because we'd done most of those on previous trips.

I'd advise renting as small a car as can fit all of you (plus luggage) in reasonable comfort. The roads are often extremely narrow and windy. In the countryside, you'll find yourself backing up just so someone coming in the opposite direction can pass you. You won't want anything that's bigger than necessary!

 

[georgina]

Timely post, as we are considering Ireland in May after last child graduates from college. There will be 6 of us (all adults), so no tiny rental car, and will need 3 rooms where ever we stay, unless we too go the VRBO route. I will be keeping an eye on this thread!

and good luck, OP, my niece attended Trinity and now lives in London.

 

[auger]

Omg!! I can't believe how much info you have all give me! I was thinking I'd be lucky to get a couple of tips, and instead, I got a ton!
My weekend was unexpectedly hectic, and I just finally found time to login, and I was amazed by all of your responses.
I will be sifting through them over the next few nights as I get time after work and dinner.
Definitely a lot of different things to check out!
Thanks to everyone who has contributed so far!
I'll be looking forward to anymore info that comes in!

 

[rigs32]

I ate most meals from markets - standard super market or marks & spencer. Stuff we don't have in the states and much cheaper than restaurants. And my cheap hotel still had a microwave.

 

[burns2225]

My husband and I just visited Ireland in May. We were able to do a tour of southern Ireland. We started in Dublin..went west to Galway..down toward Killarney..up to Kilkenny and then flew back out of Dublin. We stayed at reasonable prices places (averaged about $100 US dollars per night) all included breakfast and parking. We ate out or at hotels each night..overall I would say the prices were comparable to US prices to eat out...average drinks and meal at night was around $50-60 US. Driving was scary...my husband was a trooper...be aware some roads are very narrow and curvy...and driving on opposite side is tricky..definitely get an automatic! We visited the cathedrals, Guinness and Jamison distillery in Dublin...used hop on hop bus with Dublin Pass, Tullemore distillery, Connemara National park, Kylemore Abbey, Cliffs of Moher, took car ferry, Ross Castle and National park, Torc Falls, Muckross castle, Blarney Castle, Rock of Cashel, Smithwicks, Wicklow National park, and Wicklow Goal. If you have questions, please feel free to ask!

 

[auger]

We honeymooned in Ireland though it's been 20 years so I don't know how much help this will be or if it's still relevant. We also didn't want to be part of a tour so we booked a B&B package through Brendan Tours. They gave us a booklet of 12 vouchers (for a 12 nt stay). Any B&B that displayed the Irish Tourist Board's logo (green shamrock) would accept a voucher for 1 night's stay and breakfast in the am. Our package included a rental car too which despite our upgrade, was extremely tiny by US standards. Since we arrived in Ireland on Oct. 10, very off season, we didn't need reservations anywhere but we were told in summer it's necessary or you could get stuck. We wandered like gypsies all over the country, stopping at a B&B when the sun started to go down. We managed to get lucky in that we were always able to find a place that we'd have our own bathroom. Many have a shared bathroom. No thanks.

We did reserve Dromoland Castle for our last night. Also once I stood before Ashford Castle, I knew I had to spend a night there. When they heard it was our honeymoon, they upgraded us to an incredible 2 level suite with a full wall fireplace, 12 ft ceilings with probably 9 ft windows, huge canopy bed,
heated towel bars, real Waterford drinking glasses,you name it. We sacrificed a voucher and paid out of pocket for that and to this day don't regret a minute of it. It's a 5* hotel and a jacket is required in their dining room which we were not prepared for so we went out to eat.

I do recall that even in mid 90's prices it was a $300+ upgrade so the car could have an automatic transmission. I have driven a stick before but didn't want the hassle/worry of having to be on the other side of the road and everything feeling opposite what we're used to. So one must shift left-handed and I wanted to make it as simple for us to transition as possible. Driving there was an adventure to say the least.

I've heard they no longer offer tours of the Waterford factory. We were able to watch the whole process and it was really amazing. They offered free engraving so we bought a seahorse (their logo) and had the bottom engraved with our dates. Still holds a special place in our hearts.

We booked our flights separately through Aer Lingus and it was only $550 pp RT. We had to connect at JFK to get there, arriving in Shannon. Then return to the US through Boston, go through customs always in the first US city you land in, then connect to Philly.
There was no internet in those days so it was hard to compare but that was the best price I could get for our dates.

Dh wants to return and bring our kids but I can only get 1 week off in summer and when I look back over our itinerary that we took, I don't know what I could cut out because we loved it all.

Have a great time!!

Thanks for all of this info. As great as the castles look, I'm afraid that is waaay outside our financial ability.

I'll have to see if Brendan Tour is still around and if they have any special promos.

We have been leaning towards Aer Lingus, even though they are more expensive than some of the other carriers. We are still trying to decide if it is worth the extra trouble to fly to BOS or LGA or even YYZ. We are closest to DTW, but thinking it would be easiest to fly out of ORD and hit a non-stop flight both ways. In order to fly into any of the other airports, we would spend almost 24 hours in airports/on planes. We already have an overnight flight to deal with, so I am thinking it might be best to take the fastest route!

Car rentals are definitely not cheap. I booked a standard manual trans today for $293 with Avis. IDK how that is going to go, but we have experience driving on the "wrong" side of the road from our time in Okinawa while we were in the Marines. Hopefully it'll come back to us, like riding a bike! LOL!

 

[auger]

If you don't already have one, go apply for a passport NOW. Not a passport card, those are for land border crossings.
If you procrastinate you will end up paying an extra $60 pp for it to be expedited.

Fortunately, we already have them from a mission trip we went on two years ago.

 

[auger]

Go to the Adventures By Disney forum and read the Ireland post there. Lots of people gave me great info, including a couple locals.

Awesome! I'll def check it out!

Sign up for airfarewatchdog alerts for your itinerary. They'll email you when the price drops. Check their site, follow on twitter.

I'll be sure to sign up and let them do the watching for me!!

I ate most meals from markets - standard super market or marks & spencer. Stuff we don't have in the states and much cheaper than restaurants. And my cheap hotel still had a microwave.

This is what we are wanting to do. We want to find a rental house or apt so we can cook our meals, rather than being forced to eat out so much.

 

[auger]

AIR
- Consider traveling from Canada. Fares from Canada are generally more competitive than those from the USA, and with the CAD in the toilet, this can generate some huge savings. How huge? For travel from mid- to late- September, a ticket from YYZ (Toronto) to DUB (Dublin) prices out at $485 on British Airways via London (LHR).
- Alternatively, you may travel via a competitive US gateway. While it's usually priced higher than going via Canada, it's pretty competitive in this situation. Travel to DUB from from Boston is $500, NYC $530, Washington $620 and Chicago $660.
- If you don't live near any of these gateways, consider purchasing a ticket to one. For example, the lowest fare from my home airport is $1200. A RT ticket to BOS is $147, and a BOS-DUB ticket is $500, yielding a total cost of $647. Now, the routing will be ugly, but I will have saved nearly 50%. Just make sure to give yourself ample time to make the connections.
- If this doesn't work or you're too stubborn to do so, set alerts on kayak or skyscanner.
- If Delta has a large presence at your local airport, consider buying an air+car package through Delta Vacations. The lowest price from my local airport is $2400 for two tickets, but for $1800, Delta Vacations will sell me the same flights + a car -- I'll have to pay a few bucks in rental car taxes, but I'll still save $600. Note that Delta Vacations is the only in-house vacation arm, so it's the only one that discounts air tickets.

I have been looking at all of these other options, but btt we pay to get to one of the cheaper airports, the price is right up there with just flying out of ORD direct.
I will def look into the Delta deals.

HOTEL
- If you don't have a specific hotel in mind, Priceline will deliver some huge savings, and more often than not, you can predict the oblique hotel offered via its Express product. For example, we're going to Anaheim next week and got the 3* Holiday Inn Anaheim Resort for less than $500 (including taxes & fees) for 8 nights. I knew it was going to be that property, researched it and determined it was acceptable (recently renovated). We took a very expensive trip in the early spring, so the budget was tight for this one, but given it's the peak vacation week of the year, we got a steal.

We are looking for a rental house or apt, rather than a hotel.

CAR
- Playing with corporate discount codes + coupons can yield big savings (look for them at Flyertalk, etc.) but it's also time consuming and takes some practice. When we go to Anaheim next week, we're renting a Hertz car for ~$120 (including tax!) for right days -- a huge steal from any vendor at LAX, let alone Hertz (although National is my preference). The price on their website was $330, but entering the AAA code + coupon saved me $200, and easily beat the incumbent reservation (~$300) we had already made. Of course, I was at a boring conference and had time to kill... this may not always be the case.

I have a lot of experience stalking the car rentals from our Disney trips! I'll check out Flyertalk and see if I find anything helpful. So far there just don't seem to be any decent codes out right now.

 

[auger]

We are headed to Ireland in 20 days (but nobody is counting, right?). I watched airfare like a hawk and stalked every possible route! If you PM me you desired departure city and arrival city, I might be able to help. We actually found a great deal into Cork and out of Shannon. We are traveling for two weeks, staying at 7 different places, some are a really good bargain, some are not so much... The rental car, however, is more than airfare...and there wasn't much we could do about that. Overall, I think we have planned the most economical for our needs/wants. We are a family of 4--two kids, two adults. Seriously, PM me if you want to bounce ideas off me and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

We are closest to DTW, but within about 3-4 hours driving distance of ORD, CLE, IND, and CMH. We would like to fly into DUB, because DD will be about an hour south of there at Greystones.
We are open to any advice you can give us from your experience!

 

[kelly622]

We are headed to Ireland in 20 days (but nobody is counting, right?). I watched airfare like a hawk and stalked every possible route! If you PM me you desired departure city and arrival city, I might be able to help. We actually found a great deal into Cork and out of Shannon. We are traveling for two weeks, staying at 7 different places, some are a really good bargain, some are not so much... The rental car, however, is more than airfare...and there wasn't much we could do about that. Overall, I think we have planned the most economical for our needs/wants. We are a family of 4--two kids, two adults. Seriously, PM me if you want to bounce ideas off me and I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Planning a trip for next summer. Would love any tips

 

[auger]

My husband and I just visited Ireland in May. We were able to do a tour of southern Ireland. We started in Dublin..went west to Galway..down toward Killarney..up to Kilkenny and then flew back out of Dublin. We stayed at reasonable prices places (averaged about $100 US dollars per night) all included breakfast and parking. We ate out or at hotels each night..overall I would say the prices were comparable to US prices to eat out...average drinks and meal at night was around $50-60 US. Driving was scary...my husband was a trooper...be aware some roads are very narrow and curvy...and driving on opposite side is tricky..definitely get an automatic! We visited the cathedrals, Guinness and Jamison distillery in Dublin...used hop on hop bus with Dublin Pass, Tullemore distillery, Connemara National park, Kylemore Abbey, Cliffs of Moher, took car ferry, Ross Castle and National park, Torc Falls, Muckross castle, Blarney Castle, Rock of Cashel, Smithwicks, Wicklow National park, and Wicklow Goal. If you have questions, please feel free to ask!

This is the kind of touring we are looking to do. But we want to try and stay in one location for lodging. We want to be nearby DD's school in Greystones, so we can visit her as much as possible. We are also hoping to surprise he with a weekend hop to London for her b-day.

Sounds like you did a lot of great touring! Any tips on ways to save, things to not miss, things to not bother with, etc, would be greatly appreciated.